Letters to the Editor: 12-4-2014

We thoroughly enjoyed our attendance at a few of the community gatherings on Thanksgiving, those being at the old Whiteaker School and Friendly Street Church.

While the food, service and, in the case of the former, great live musical entertainment was excellent, it is all of the wonderful volunteers across the entire spectrum of operations and who gave their time and energy helping those of us in need, who are the true angels of humanity in society today.

I shudder to even think of how things would be if it were not for these caring, compassionate people, as they are the best example of the human race. Thank you all for a wondrous and memorable Thanksgiving Day!

C. Kirsch, Harrisburg

NO REASON GIVEN

Due to the utter lack of transparency at EPUD nowadays, we have very little information to surmise exactly why the utility lost a very well-liked manager and why the ratepayers are going to be left with nearly half a million dollars in costs to replace him.

It is clear from news articles and letters to the editor that the EPUD manager was highly respected by employees and did much to improve EPUD’s capital infrastructure and financial reserves.

What isn’t clear is why the majority board forced him to resign. The board never did provide a reason, except that some board members “lost faith in him.” At a cost of nearly half a million dollars to ratepayers (severance packages, interim manager, legal fees, health benefits, executive sessions, etc.), we are entitled to a more substantive reason for forcing the general manager to resign.

As a ratepayer, I couldn’t care less what the manager said about individual board members. If he was “venting” to another board member, it no doubt had to do with his frustration at the self-serving agenda of the board majority.

The board needs to work out their differences, save the ratepayers money and hire back their manager.

Tonya Doughty, Lorane

CORRUPTED PARTIES

Within believers both left and right, blind government worship seems to be rampant. A majority of partisans appear to give lazy, undeserved piety to violent government agents and actions. This herd of followers clearly has deep disagreements amongst themselves about how one should go about adulating government, but together Democrat and Republican sectarians are intertwined as religious schismatics: Both kneel alike to kiss the same ring of corruption, only quarreling over the modes of supplication to it.

None of these dangerous extremists are upholding our inalienable individual rights. Each insist that their party collective has arbitrary supremacy over determining interests to which all must submit! The Republican and Democrat parties are in tandem corrupted, fully and hopelessly self-interested. Both seem to endorse unlimited eminent domain over human life. Deluded partisan fools from both sides of the aisle are giving misplaced creed into the false dogma of state monopolized violence. To hear such a violent government then condemn violence as futile is of the utmost mind-boggling hypocrisy!

Mike McFadden, Eugene

WHINING ABOUT ADS

Here we go again. Why does the Weekly bother printing the incessant whining about their advertisers?
Webster’s dictionary defines discrimination as “to make a distinction in favor or against a person or thing on the basis of prejudice.” The local free newspaper, taking payment for advertising space from a local business, filling a local demand, does not count.

Gita Sturm [Letters, 11/26], I am sorry that you chose to move to our community based on a newspaper. That does not give you the right to dictate who advertises in it. From someone born and raised in this paradise of a state, please move back to wherever you are from. I highly doubt that any contribution you make here is worth the whiney, divisive attitude you bring.

Alex Gilliam, Eugene

IT’S ALL MEDICINAL

Now that the state of Oregon has voted to legalize recreational marijuana, let’s use the seven months leading up to implementation in a constructive fashion. It is time for all consciousness to come together and realize that recreational is just syntax. It’s all medical. Marijuana expands one’s consciousness so healthy and positive messages can take hold. It is really that simple.

Therefore, may all people realize that the imbalance one perceives in the world is a consequence of conscious or unconscious acting against the universal laws, in the past and today. Insight into the operations of the universal laws help one to understand what is needed to restore the balance and harmony in one’s self as well as worldwide. Because universal laws are applicable to all aspects of one’s individual and social life, one can use these insights as a frame of reference for all personal and social interactions.

The only solutions that will work in the long run, and not for some but for everyone and everything on this planet, are those that are in line with the universal laws. What I find really powerful is that these insights provide me with clarity in what is needed for an optimal development of my consciousness during this very excellent moment in the history of humanity.

Enough said. Let’s get it right.

Joe Canfield, Eugene

FORCING THE VOTE

I sympathize with Michael Hinojosa’s frustration at what passes for our political life these days [Letters, 11/20], but I wonder if his suggested remedies aren’t worse than the disease. He rails that “74 percent of Americans are either too stupid or disillusioned to even vote” and then nods approvingly at Australia’s compulsory voting law. Well, aside from the fact that many will consider forcing people to vote a particularly obnoxious abuse of government power, if as many Americans are stupid as Hinojosa seems to think, why does he want to coerce their votes?

Then he argues that political ads should be banned from TV and radio. Why? Where has it been proven that TV advertising turns voters into idiots, or that newspaper ads magically transform them into intellectuals? And I’m all for candidate debates, but again, it seems to me an abuse of government power to force all TV stations to carry them, as Hinojosa demands, and at a government-mandated time no less. Couldn’t we allow at least one channel to show The Three Stooges? No, probably not; too many voters would assume they had tuned in to the debates.

Hinojosa is obviously not fooled by the billions spent by the likes of the Koch brothers to launder our minds come election time. I’ll bet none of his friends are fooled. The Kochs can’t pull the wool over my eyes, either. So who needs to be protected from all those nefarious ads? The 74 percent who are stupid or disillusioned. Hinojosa is unwilling to trust them to make the informed decisions that he routinely makes. I respectfully suggest that refusal to take a chance on the voters (no matter how stupid or disillusioned) getting it right without the hand of an all-knowing, all-powerful government on their shoulders, forcing them to vote, protecting them from illogical advertising, leaving them no option but to watch debates, might be as counterproductive as the megabucks-fueled ravings of right-wing zealots that Hinojosa so rightly decries.